In a half-dozen English language magazines Ford Warriors in Pink has used pretty much the same ad (seen below) with a call to action to buy branded merchandise from the campaign’s website. Purchases benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

But the ad on the left from the Noviembre 2009 issue of People en Espanol is more of awareness and esteem builder for Spanish-speakers affected by cancer.

I’d be the first to say that you can’t just translate advertising from one language to another and expect it to remain effective. That said, while I can imagine a dozen reasons why Ford Warriors in Pink took this approach, none of them strike me as being terribly compelling.

This is all the more puzzling to me since Fordcares.com, the site where you can but all the Warriors in Pink merchandise, and its Spanish-language sister…sacatiempo.com… mirror each other very closely.

I’d really like to hear opinions from some Spanish-language marketers on this issue.